SCA has launched the Heart Network, a new national music brand, on DAB+ and LiSTNR. Debuting with two stations, Heart and Heart Hits, the network is an expansion across the digital audio space designed to help listeners relax and escape.
Heart and Heart Hits are adult contemporary formats, Heart is crafted for a female audience, offering a mood based format that helps listeners to escape and unwind with songs spanning the 70s, 80s to now, featuring artists like Whitney Houston, Jennifer Lopez, Taylor Swift, Ronan Keating, Crowded House and ABBA. Heart Hits is nostalgia driven with hits from the 70s, 80s and 90s from Madonna, Lionel Richie, Elton John, Queen, U2 and many more.
Heart represents SCA seeking to expand their 25-54 ‘audience that matters’ through digital-first music experience. With more personalised, relevant content it meets listener needs across the day.
Matthew O’Reilly, SCA Head of Broadcast Content said:
“Heart strengthens SCA’s already diverse music portfolio and marks our entry into the world’s most popular format — adult contemporary. It’s the leading format in New York, Los Angeles and London, and now SCA has a powerful adult contemporary brand of its own. Heart is built for listeners seeking a more personal and mood-based experience, while expanding our reach as the Number 1 network on DAB+. With Heart, SCA continues to lead the evolution of digital audio in Australia.”
The Heart brand, strikingly similar in name to ARN‘s iHeart podcast and DAB+ network, will grow to include more stations and formats, with partnership opportunities built around clearly defined audiences and listening moments. There are more than 50 music playlists already on LiSTNR, and a partnership with Foxtel as the platform’s new linear audio music partner. Foxtel now feature 25 of LiSTNR’s curated playlists too for their more than two million signed-on users.
In Australia the Heart brand is owned by Southern Cross Austereo, through several quirks of fate that saw Reg Grundy’s RG Capital group register the trade mark in 1980, only to be bought out by Macquarie Bank, which eventually became Southern Cross Austereo.